As feared, Becket has lost his little mind again. I was hoping she could spend her last (likely) week curled up with him like usual, but I'll settle for keeping him from attacking her. I don't entirely condemn him - she doesn't even smell right to ME. She's roaming from favorite spot to favorite spot, and we were doing okay until last night when she came over to get up on the couch with us. He started screaming like I was vivisecting him (and believe me, I was tempted.)

I locked him in the basement for the night. Blocked the door with a forty pound box of litter. Can you believe that little fucker managed to push the door open? Nonetheless, they're both out, and so far there's peace.

I got my first full dose of meds into her this morning. Famotidine for nausea, cyproheptadine for appetite, and buprenorphine for pain. The fact that I could get all of those into her tells me how far gone she is - she is a past master of spitting out a pill that you could swear she swallowed. She ate a little last night - I'm following her around with the food bowl, although honestly, I doubt that I really need to worry about her not eating and coming down with hepatic lipidosis at this point.

But she purrs for me - the purr is bigger than she is - and she crawled into my lap last night. Which made me cry hysterically. I need to get this under control before Bob gets back from King & Queen's Archery tonight. I need to figure out how to explain this all to Charlotte.

She gets the famotidine and cyproheptadine twice a day - that's easy. The buprenorphine is two to three times a day. I figure if I can dose her at 6:00, 2:00, and 10:00, that should keep her as comfortable as possible. Right now I'm trying to figure out if I can practically manage to come home from work to give her the mid-day painkiller and then go back to the office. It might work. My boss has pets, and I doubt it will be for more than a week. I noticed that while the vet said that she *might* go a couple of months, they sent me home with five days of meds.

I can't believe that she is going so quickly, and so slowly, all at one time.

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Cat seem to know when their time is near. And from my experience they almost seem to want to give the people they love all the attention they can stand (of more then they can stand). I would say don't worry about the tears as you need this to let go of the feelings and the loss ahead. As for explaining to Charlotte I would say be simple but be truthful. The worse thing to do is to say she's going to sleep or that she is going away. Be honest and gentle in telling her she is going home to God where we will meet up with all our pet and friends sometime in the future. Kids have an amazing way of understanding and dealing with the loss. I'll be praying for all concerned.

When my father died, a priest or pastor at the hospital gave my stepbrother some advice on how to tell his kids. The idea is to tell them that sometimes when people (or in this case, animals) get very old or very sick, at some point their body stops working, so they die. My oldest niece, then 8, understood what death was by then, and just cried. The then 5-year-old twins, one just wanted to play, and the other wanted to ask tons of questions, but they seemed to understand somewhat without being traumatized. I'm not sure they figured it out that they wouldn't be able to play with him again.

I'm trying not to over complicate things - I suspect that she's going to be far, far less upset than we are. Because Nishka is the elderly cat, we've discouraged Charlotte from playing with her. She's more involved with Becket.

That's basically what I've told her - that Nishka is very old, and very sick, and this time the doctor can't make it better. I've had a lot of serial bad luck with fish, so on some level she understands that things die, and that means they don't come back. This is all harder on me than on her. After all, I've had the cat longer than I've had her...